Will an Island for Gaza Bring Peace?

By: Yossi Krausz

At the moment, Gaza’s legal imports and exports come almost exclusively through Israeli-controlled border crossings. Despite being open on one side to the water, Gaza has no port. But Likud MK Yisrael Katz, who is both Transportation Minister and Intelligence Minister, has been pushing a plan in recent days that would fix that, as has been reported on in international media.

His idea? Create an island off the coast of Gaza that would serve as a port. Connect that island to the mainland with a causeway that would be controlled by Israel, allowing security to be maintained. Israel would be able to ensure that weapons and other tools of the terrorist would not be brought into Gaza. Gilead Sher, a senior research fellow and the head of the Center for Applied Negotiations at the Institute for National Security Studies, recently wrote an article outlining the importance and prerequisites for a Gaza port. As he pointed out, contracts for the construction of a port in Gaza were already being signed in 1994 and construction actually started in 2000, until Israel halted it soon afterward.